Learning to Focus

Cats don't multitask....they focus on one thing at a time. In today’s world, the easy thing for us to do is multitask – whether it is on technology, switching between Facebook, email and texting, or in the everyday routine (washing, cooking, cleaning, etc.) and constantly being interrupted (when you have children at home). As a mother multitasking is necessary (and seen as a prerequisite) to keep everything together. Our kids are also constantly multitasking many things, juggling academics, sports, activities, chatting, texting, friends and family time, to name a few.

Thus the question may become, is multitasking really healthy?

Recently when I read a book called The Organized Mind, I appreciated the fact that the author (a neuroscientist doing research on brain function) stated specifically that multitasking is really bad for you. Here is what he said:

“Multitasking has been found to increase the stress hormone cortisol as well as adrenaline which can over stimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking. Multitasking creates a dopamine addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for ‘losing focus’ and for constantly searching for external stimulation.”

It may feel like you have achieved a lot, but did you really? Is there not more satisfaction in achieving something which require sustained, focused effort? When you are focused on a task which requires sustained focus and energy, it is actually the brain’s more effective mode for cognitive performance. Of course your mind will need to ‘rest’ as it cannot focus all the time continuously (so there is a time when daydreaming is necessary!), but is the culture of today not encouraging multitasking to the detriment of being able to focus well for a long
enough time period? As a result, is negative multitasking not what our children are learning?
What are we modelling to our children? What are we encouraging them to do? Being very busy and good at multitasking, or being able to focus long enough to achieve a specific goal? Remember that multitasking is not just referring to physical activities but those multiple things all of us do very well and very often on our smartphones...checking our emails, Facebook, texting here and then there etc. As the book also stated, “make no mistake: Facebook, email, twitter and texting checking constitute a neural addiction."

How much of our days include activities where sustained focus is required?

As mentioned in an article I have written many years ago (read it for free HERE), one of the mistakes we as
homeschoolers can make, is to lose focus. There are different seasons to focus on different things, the challenge is to know what to focus on when, and to let go of those things not necessary for now. This is a value system we may also want our children to learn, so they can be effective in not only managing their time but also in being really productive.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is: Do we help our children to focus long enough to do a task well, or do we encourage multitasking by constantly looking for external stimulation? Are we able to focus long enough to do a task well, or do we lose focus easily and look for external stimulation? The answers to these questions will determine if our children eventually reach their goals, big and small, or not. And since failure is universally defined as not reaching one’s goals, this is a critical aspect to address in our homeschooling.

Let us not encourage our children to become easily distracted, and lose out on the satisfaction that comes from doing a job well.
Until next time!
Willemien

In the end there doesn’t have to be anyone who understand you. There just has to be someone who wants to.
(Robert Brault)